1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a device for bringing a print head to a printer into a press-contact state with print material.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is well known that a printer that prints a tag or label (or the like) by pressing it against a print head often has uneven contact between the print head and the print material which causes the print to blur. This is due to the fact that no uniform pressure is applied over the entire surface of the print material. Even if a print head is initially designed not to blur when printing, mechanical displacement takes place in the printer as time lapses, causing uneven contact. In order to solve this problem, Nozaki et al. (Japanese Laid-Open utility model No. 51-154211) discloses a print head press-contact device having a platen which is rotatably held with respect to the printer frame, whereby the platen and print head are brought into close-contact with each other. As the platen rotates and oscillates elastically with respect to the surface of the print head while it presses a tag or label against the print head, a substantially uniform pressure is applied to the print material so that no printing blur occurs.
However, when the print material is so hard or stiff that it does not closely contact the platen, rotating the platen does not produce a close-contact between the print head and the print material, and hence sufficient contact therebetween cannot be obtained. It is therefore difficult to obtain high print quality when hard print materials are used.